3 ms·

If you've ever been involved in ToS drafting, you're used to customers panicking over clauses that you and your attorneys crafted to deal with pretty standard b

If you've ever been involved in ToS drafting, you're used to customers panicking over clauses that you and your attorneys crafted to deal with pretty standard business requirements, such as granting adaptation rights so you can create thumbnails or summaries of user-generated content, for example. This ... is not that. This is facially overbroad, lacks any kind of even indicative usage limitations, and likely breaks a lot of standard negotiating and contracting for authors within the publishing (and related) industries. While I've seen bad and overbroad adhesion contracts that were cut-and-paste jobs not created by actual counsel, I don't think I've seen something this audacious that went through legal review. It's predatory.

wrs 3y ago
“Training” in these things comes across differently than it did two years ago (i.e., employee training)! And what is “modeling” supposed to mean? This actually reads much like the typical internet ToS of 20 years ago, before it became standard to say “only as needed to provide the specific services” because people started rightfully freaking out. Especially in the media world with its history of repeatedly bilking artists out of royalties whenever a new format comes around, this is quite an insensitive move.
- nusl 3y ago
  They're gonna eat your work to generate AI-voiced audiobooks
- HillRat 3y ago
  That's one thing -- if you took a contract signed ten years ago that granted "training" rights and tried to use that for "AI training," a judge would likely find that customary business usage has changed in that time and there was no "meeting of the minds" to support a grant of AI training rights. Take that same language and sign a contract with it today ... different story. (Interesting question for contract lawyers: if you take the contract from a decade ago and execute it today, does the usage at the time of contract drafting control, or the usage at signing? One would assume time of signing, but for an adhesion contract that might not have undergone substantive changes I think there's an interesting argument that the interpretation most favorable to the signer controls. Probably some case law out there addressing this.)
  - arp242 3y ago
    > Take that same language and sign a contract with it today ... different story. I wouldn't be so sure about that; do non-tech people commonly understand "training" to mean "training of AI models"? I don't have a poll to prove it, but I would expect not.

wrs 3y ago

“Training” in these things comes across differently than it did two years ago (i.e., employee training)! And what is “modeling” supposed to mean? This actually reads much like the typical internet ToS of 20 years ago, before it became standard to say “only as needed to provide the specific services” because people started rightfully freaking out. Especially in the media world with its history of repeatedly bilking artists out of royalties whenever a new format comes around, this is quite an insensitive move.

nusl 3y ago
They're gonna eat your work to generate AI-voiced audiobooks
HillRat 3y ago
That's one thing -- if you took a contract signed ten years ago that granted "training" rights and tried to use that for "AI training," a judge would likely find that customary business usage has changed in that time and there was no "meeting of the minds" to support a grant of AI training rights. Take that same language and sign a contract with it today ... different story. (Interesting question for contract lawyers: if you take the contract from a decade ago and execute it today, does the usage at the time of contract drafting control, or the usage at signing? One would assume time of signing, but for an adhesion contract that might not have undergone substantive changes I think there's an interesting argument that the interpretation most favorable to the signer controls. Probably some case law out there addressing this.)
- arp242 3y ago
  > Take that same language and sign a contract with it today ... different story. I wouldn't be so sure about that; do non-tech people commonly understand "training" to mean "training of AI models"? I don't have a poll to prove it, but I would expect not.